Island Science Nantucket Events

Coastal Erosion Experts Offer Nantucket a Global View

LECTURE HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO THE SPRING STORM ON NANTUCKET.  WATCH FOR NEW DATE AND TIME.

The Nantucket Coastal Conservancy and the UMass Boston School For The Environment will host a free lecture with coastal erosion experts Cornelia Dean and Dr. Robert Young on Tuesday, March 25 at 5 pm at Hendrix Hall, located on the first floor of the Unitarian Church.  The talk is titled A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE ON COASTAL MANAGEMENT ISSUES IN AN ERA OF RISING SEA LEVEL.


Cornelia Dean is a science writer for the New York Times, where she writes about environmental issues and science policy. She is the author of “Against the Tide: The Battle for America’s Beaches.”  She is a former New York Times science editor, where she was responsible for coverage of science, health and medical news in the daily paper and in the weekly “Science Times” section. She has been a fellow at the Kennedy School of Government and taught in the Harvard College program on Environmental Science and Public Policy and has also taught at several other universities.


Dean also served as the Times’ deputy Washington editor covering domestic policy and began her newspaper career at the Providence Journal. Born in Montclair, NJ, Dean received a bachelor’s degree from Brown University and masters’ degree from Boston University. Dean’s book, “Against the Tide: The Battle for America’s Beaches”, was published in 1999  and was a New York Times Notable Book of the year. Her second book, “Am I Making Myself Clear?,” was published in 2009. She is currently working on a book about the misuse of scientific information in American public life.


Dr. Robert Young is the Director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, a joint Duke University/Western Carolina University venture and a Professor of Geosciences at Western Carolina University.  He is a co-author, with Dr. Orrin Pilkey, of the book, “The Rising Sea.”
Dr. Young received an undergraduate geology degree from the College of William & Mary, a master’s degree from the University of Maine, and a PhD in Geology from Duke University, where he was a James B. Duke Distinguished Doctoral Fellow.  He serves on Editorial Boards of the Journal of Coastal Research and Environmental Geosciences and oversees more than $3.5 million in grant-funded research projects related to coastal science and management. He was named a Fulbright Senior Scholar for the 2012-2013 academic year, where he worked on the development of coastal management planning along the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria.


Dr. Young has had articles published in the New York Times, USA Today, Architectural Record, the Houston Chronicle, and the Raleigh News and Observer and regularly appears on television.  He is co-author of two books, The Rising Sea and co-editor of Geologic Monitoring, both released in 2009.
The Nantucket Coastal Conservancy’s mission is to preserve and protect Nantucket’s coastal resources, especially its natural beaches.

The UMass Boston School For The Environment is the University of Massachusetts Boston’s premier interdisciplinary environmental school. The school integrates the natural and social sciences to generate and apply new knowledge about the quality of our environment and the sustainable use of its resources. UMass Boston SFE students have been studying on the island during a “Nantucket Semester” since 2013.

Articles by Date from 2012